The
recent Tamil Nadu Assembly results were a Black Swan event with no party
getting a clear mandate and with jigsaw combinations, Mr C Vijay has become the
Chief Minister. Whom would you call in
the present political context – a Machiavelli !! (and this
post is on Machiavelli !!)
To those
who claim to be Political analysts – do you know or remember AB Shetty, K
Venkatasami Naidu, B Parameshwaran !!! – remember this logo ?
In the 1952 Madras State legislative assembly election, no single party obtained a simple majority to form an independent Government. C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) of the Indian National Congress became the Chief Minister after a series of re-alignments among various political parties and Independents. Rajaji had to resign in 1954 after the heavy opposition and in the ensuing leadership struggle, Kamaraj defeated Rajaji's chosen successor C. Subramaniam becoming Chief Minister on 31 March 1954.
In everyday political language, the reference “Machiavelli” suggests a leader who prioritizes strategy, power, and results over morality. The term is often used critically, implying manipulation, opportunism, or ruthless deal-making.
The great antagonist of virtù is fortuna, which we must understand as temporal instability—the flux and contingency of temporal events. In fact, love, as opposed to fear, falls under the rubric of fortune, because love is fortuitous, you cannot rely on it, it is not stable, it is treacherously shifty. Therefore it’s obviously better for a prince to be feared rather than loved, since fear is a constant emotion, which will remain true to itself no matter how much circumstances may shift.
Why are
we still reading this book called The Prince, which was written 500 years
ago? The Prince was not read by the
person to whom it was dedicated, Lorenzo de Medici. If the truth be told, this
strange little treatise for which Machiavelli is famous, or infamous, never
aided—at least not in any systematic way—anyone in the actual business of
governing. The most one can say about The Prince in this regard is that
Kissinger and Nixon preferred it as their bedtime reading.
Later political thought also absorbed parts of his outlook on power, state survival, and practical judgment Bitter and looking for work, Machiavelli did something surprising: he wrote The Prince around 1513 and dedicated it to Lorenzo de' Medici—the very man ruling the state that had just tortured him. The man, hailed as - “Galileo of Politics” - desparately wanted to prove to the Medici that he understood power mechanics better than anyone else, hoping they would hire him back. Yet Medici did not trust him and largely ignored the book. It was never published during his lifetime
The man said :
• The people are often wiser than
princes. He says the many can be more stable and more reliable than a single
ruler.
• Corruption is a constant danger. He
thinks states decay over time, so freedom and civic virtue need active defense.
• Rome is the model. He uses Roman
history to show how laws, institutions, and citizen participation helped Rome
grow powerful.
• Good laws and force both matter. Machiavelli does not believe politics runs on ideals alone; a republic must be able to defend itself and sometimes use extraordinary measures in crises.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise The Prince (Il Principe), written around 1513 but not published until 1532, five years after his death. He is called the father of modern political philosophy and political science. He is famous for analyzing politics as it really works, not as people wish it worked. His name became associated with hard-nosed political strategy, especially the idea that rulers may need to act ruthlessly in unstable times.
Machiavelli’s thought
centers on virtù—practical strength, skill, discipline, and the ability to
shape events. He also stressed “effectual truth,” meaning political judgment
should start from how people actually behave.
By quirk of fate, Niccolò Machiavelli’s life had a dramatic twist: he
served Florence as a diplomat, then was falsely accused of conspiracy,
tortured, and sent into exile. That setback is what helped push him to write
The Prince, the book that made his name famous and controversial. Machiavelli's success was short-lived. In
August 1512, the Medici, backed by Pope Julius II, used Spanish troops to
defeat the Florentines at Prato. In the wake of the siege, Piero Soderini
resigned as Florentine head of state and fled into exile. The experience would,
like Machiavelli's time in foreign courts and with the Borgia, heavily
influence his political writings. The Florentine city-state and the republic
were dissolved. Machiavelli was ordered to remain in Florence for a year, and
to pay a surety of one thousand florins. He was falsely implicated in a
conspiracy to remove the Medici family from power merely because his name was
on a list of possible sympathizers. Despite being subjected to torture ("with the rope", in which the
prisoner is hanged from his bound wrists from the back, forcing the arms to
bear the body's weight and dislocating the shoulders), he denied involvement
and was released after three weeks/
One of the most interesting episodes is that Machiavelli watched the brutal politics of Renaissance Italy up close, including Cesare Borgia’s ruthless actions. He studied those events so closely that they became the raw material for his political ideas about power, fear, loyalty, and survival. His reputation is often reduced to “the end justifies the means,” but the real story is more complicated: he was trying to understand how rulers actually behave, not how they should behave in an ideal world. That’s why his work still feels sharp today—because it reads like a field report on power under pressure.
In a
capsule, Machiavelli is interesting because he was a civil servant turned
political thinker, and his most famous ideas were born from watching real
political chaos, personal failure, and exile.
Interestingly, Shakespeare’s plays are filled with famous Machiavellian villains—Lady Macbeth, Iago, Edmund. Think of King Lear, for example. There are a number of characters in that play who have an explicitly Machiavellian cynicism about politics, who believe that politics is nothing but efficacy, the will to power, naked ambition, pragmatism devoid of ethical considerations. One such character is Edmund, the illegitimate son of Gloucester. Others are Lear’s two daughters Regan and Goneril. And the other is, of course, Cornwall, Regan’s husband.
Machiavelli was brilliant, his treatise was far reaching, turning out to be relevant hundreds of years after it was written, yet he did not have a successful political career, or charming life !!
As we conclude with the names Q at the start !! : K. Venkataswami Naidu ( 1896 – 1972) was an Indian lawyer and politician from Tamil Nadu, belonging to Indian National Congress. He served as the Mayor of Madras in the late 1930s. During 1952-54, he was the Minister for Religious Endowments and Registration of Madras State.
Balasubramanian Parameswaran (1913- 1966) was elected to the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly from Maduranthakam constituency as an Indian National Congress candidate in 1946, 1952, and 1962 elections. He was the grandson of Rettamalai Srinivasan, a pioneer in the Scheduled Caste movement. He was educated in Presidency College, Madras. During 1952–54, he was the mayor of Madras and in Kamarajar cabinet, he was the minister for Transport, Harijan Uplift, Hindu Religious Endowments, Registration and Prohibition. Later he became a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Regards – S Sampathkumar
15.5.2026
